WHAT’S THE STORY WITH THE DELI SERVICE CASE?

Kenna S. Eaton GM, 12/6/2024

All we want for Christmas is a new deli case!

We have a good story to tell about that case. It began its life 30 years ago, as best as we can tell, and was given to us by PCC Markets when we moved into this store in 2000. For the past 20 years or so, it has been the center of our food service operations and a workhorse to boot. However, it was also always a problem for staff—keeping it full and looking good was a skill that took time to learn. Bending over the back rail and reaching into the case often left marks on staff shirts and aprons, but more critically it was not designed with ergonomics in mind. When we were redesigning the deli in 2019, we strongly considered replacing it but couldn’t find anything we liked better—so it stayed in place, anchoring our food service offerings.

Fast forward and in the past four years it has become unreliable, unable to do its job well. For instance, it started leaking refrigerant. This not only had a negative impact on the environment, but also caused the other two cases on the same compressor to stop functioning, The pressure was on to replace the case before it died or caused more or even greater damage. But we didn’t act fast enough, and then the other day we got the news that it is now officially ‘dead’, deemed unrepairable.

While the food service staff are busy researching options for equipment, we have re-opened the cold bar with 6 self-serve composed salads. These will rotate out depending on the season and popularity and sell for the same price as the hot bar. We are making room in the Grab N Go case for more of the items you once could find in the service case, like lunch meat or corn pudding. And we’re planning to temporarily relocate the ‘Ice’ freezer in front of the service case and fill it as well.

It will take us some time to fully research the options before deciding “what next?”. And once that decision is made there will be some lag before installing new equipment.  So, we’re looking at operating with this temporary setup for at least a month or two given our recent experiences with purchasing equipment. So, thanks for being flexible with us, as once again we navigate this new challenge~ together we can make this work!

And an extra special ‘shout out’ to the Food Service team for working their magic to make it all work for us—thanks all!